We Are American Now
by SpaceCowboi
Summary: "If they are mean to you, smile and nod, do not let it affect you. Eat their burned hamburgers, their greasy hotdogs, celebrate their holidays, we are American now." Eventually AltxMal, AU.


Hey guys~ New username and a fresh start~  
So I'm starting over right and submitting this teaser for a potential fic (i can't really guarantee when exactly it'll be updated...lol) that started as an assignment for my creative writing class. OH SO POSH. IKR? But ya, tl;dr version, this will be (obviously) an AU story, MalikxAltair of course~ Right now its centered more on their friendship, but future chapters will have lemons~ Its been a while since I've actually written any fanfiction, let alone Assassin's Creed fanfiction...OH WELL, WE SHALL SEE WHAT WE SHALL SEE.  
Thank you, hope ya dig!

oOoOo

My mother took me from the arms of my dead father, what had been left of him, and replaced his cold, scorched torso with a bundle of my things. Hurry, she whispered to me, dragging me along as we skirted along the blast zone. My little legs struggled to keep up with her long strides; my mind was still back in that Godforsaken hole, holding onto my father and crying for him to open his eyes. We are going to America, she told me later that day. I didn't want to go, I wanted to stay. This place was my home, a war-torn, destroyed home, but home nonetheless. We will make a new home she replied, her mind set, resignation deep in the lines of grief on her face.

They almost forced her to remove her hijab at the checkpoint, and I could only think that it would be far worse in America. If their precious soldiers treated a helpless and widowed woman like a terrorist how would I be treated? Too young to be a man and too old to be a child, I was not above reproach. They searched our meager belongings dozens of times, and my person many more. The whole time I stared at my mother, incredulously. How could she leave our home for this hell? She had plastered a fake, uncomfortable smile on her face as the men searched her once more. I could only see it as a violation, not a precaution.

Speak in English from now on, eat American food, smile more, we are going to a better place. She repeated these things to me over and over on the long bus ride to the airport, all in that bitter, foreign tongue. I barely knew any English, and she said I would learn if I knew what was good for me. If they are mean to you, smile and nod, do not let it affect you. Eat their burned hamburgers, their greasy hotdogs, celebrate their holidays, we are American now.

We made it through the airport, onto the plane, and it is only now that I realize that mother must have been saving for years. How else could she have afforded two tickets to New York? People stared at us as we walked off the plane. It made me uncomfortable and exposed, and I realized that we must have made quite a sight. I had no time to clean up before our desperate flight, and the front of my shirt was still stained with the blood of my father. My mother's once beautiful face was covered in dirt, and tears made tracks down her face. She forced me to wear one of my jackets and zipped it up all the way, to cover the blood she said. It was the middle of August, but I still complied. I felt like I was violating the only proof of my father I had left, but I still complied.

It took only a few days to find a decent apartment to rent. Apparently a friend of the family owned a small convenience store and allowed us to use the extra room above the store. Time passed quickly after that, I went to a school, learned with the Americans, learned that my people were all dirty and poor and either deserved their hatred or sympathy. The teachers said that we did not know any better, and were being used by our superiors, tricked by our very religion. I clenched my fist so hard I snapped my pencil at the last statement, and I don't think I had ever prayed that hard before that night. I felt like I was in a whole new world, and not a good one either. Whatever my mother was hoping for, I hope she got it, because I was miserable. But that changed soon enough.

I made a friend, also a refugee's son who fled the war, his name was Altair. He was nice, and loud and boisterous. Unlike me who let every insult and slander creep into my mind and stay lodged there for days, he welcomed them, unhesitant to fire back. He got into trouble a lot for doing so, and I could only think of the unfairness of it all. Johnny-Do-Good thought it was his right to "put us in our place" and never got in trouble, he only received disapproving and nervous glances from the teachers, but when my friend stood up to the privileged child he received detention, suspension, demerits, and I begged him to stop. He would not. He sent me this particularly devilish smirk one day and said that if he did not fight back, who would?

We had a guest speaker in class one day, a soldier that was caught in a blast from a land mine. He was missing a leg, a hand, and an ear. It was horrible to look at, and I felt myself sinking further and further into my seat, felt nervous sweat prickle along my back every time he looked in our direction, my friend and I. Of course, as usual, my friend was faring better than me, meeting the soldier's stare with his own, smiling at his jokes and looking remorseful at the appropriate times. This was so unlike him I was shocked into acting like normal as well, too stunned by the change of behavior to notice the other children's hateful glances. I knew then why he acted the way he did. It was not spite for the ignorant Americans, or some higher calling, he was acting like himself, the self that I had forgotten in that hole along with my father's corpse.

I realized that I could not let my feelings control my actions any longer. I was saved from the war. I was safe in New York, safe with my mother, and my new friend. I still get stares now and then, but it no longer bothers me like it did before. I was taken from a real battle with danger and death, and placed into a people battle, where my social status was in danger. Some days it felt like I hadn't been saved at all, and others I felt like I was on top of the world. But if it meant laughing at the soldier's jokes, forgetting my father's corpse and remembering my father for who he was, and praying at night, and eating pizza at sleepovers with my expanding network of American friends, I would gladly forget my life before America. And I did.

oOoOo

hurrrrrrr...love you guys. BD


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